Cosplay Pikachu can switch between any costumes at any time by going to any Contest Hall in the Hoenn region and talking to the Pokémon Breeder in the green room. This Pokémon Breeder can also remove the costume.

Upon removing a costume, Cosplay Pikachu will forget the special move associated with the previous costume. Upon putting on a new costume, she will learn the special move associated with the new costume. When changing costume, if Cosplay Pikachu knows four moves but not the special move of her previous costume, the player will be prompted to replace a move with the new exclusive move (Cosplay Pikachu cannot put on the new costume unless she does). If Cosplay Pikachu's only known move is her special move and the costume is removed, then she will learn Thunder Shock. Cosplay Pikachu can remain in a costume even if she forgets the associated special move.

Pikachu Libre was first announced alongside the Wii U port of the game (standard Pikachu is also a character). She was later released as an additional fighter on the original arcade version.

In the anime

Frank's Pikachu wearing the costumes

Five Pikachu wearing the Cosplay Pikachu outfits appeared in Lights! Camera! Pika!, under the ownership of Frank. Out of these, Pikachu Rock Star and Pikachu Libre were shown to be regular male Pikachu, while the others were female Pikachu with a black heart marking on their tails like in the games.

Frank was filming a Pikachu movie, with Pikachu Libre acting as the villain and the others as residents of Pikachu Land. Seeing Ash's Pikachu, he decided to give it the role of the movie's hero, "Super Pikachu". With Ash and his friends helping out, the movie was successfully filmed and completed.

One of each Cosplay Pikachu variant appeared in the second XY seriesmovie, Hoopa and the Clash of Ages, amongst the multiple Pikachu summoned by Hoopa as part of a prank against Ash and Pikachu. After initially panicking due to their new surroundings, the entire Pikachu horde, including the Cosplay Pikachu, was calmed down by Ash's Pikachu and sent back to their original homes in an orderly fashion with the help of Hoopa's portals.

Cosplay Pikachu also appeared in the extra scenes of the Poké TV program for XY101, called Performer News, in which they were seen performing in Pokémon Showcases.

Pikachu Rock Star

Pikachu Belle

Pikachu Pop Star

Pikachu, Ph. D

Pikachu Libre

In the manga

In the Pokémon Adventures manga

In Omega Alpha Adventure 3, Cosplay Pikachu were introduced to Chaz by Lisia. Lisia revealed that Ruby created the concept of Pokémon wearing costumes for Contests, and even made matching costumes for their Trainers to wear. Unlike the games, the Cosplay Pikachu is not an individual Pikachu, several are male, and only one has a black marking on the tip of her tail.

In the TCG

Cosplay PikachuCards listed with a blue background are only legal to use in the current Expanded format.Cards listed with a silver background are legal to use in both the current Standard and Expanded formats.

Trivia

Cosplay Pikachu shares several similarities with HeartGold and SoulSilver's Spiky-eared Pichu. Both are female-only variants of the Pikachu evolution line who were introduced in remakes. They are both incapable of evolving, breeding, being traded, or being transferred to later games. They also both cannot be obtained Shiny, though Shiny models exist in the game code for them.